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20100620

Terre’Blanche murder-probe cops guilty of torture

High Court judge slams the Terre’blanche murder-investigation police-team for illegally kidnapping and torturing an innocent man in another Nov 2004 murder-case…

2010-06-19 – PRETORIA HIGH COURT – Police LtCol Tsietsi Mano – who was arrested while heading the SAPS probe of the horrific torture/murder of Ventersdorp farmer Eugene Terre’Blanche in April 2010– was found guilty this week by acting High-Court judge Khami Makhafola of kidnapping, holding captive for five months and extensively torturing an innocent man they suspected of kidnapping and murdering an unnamed police woman in October 2004.

Rapport Afrikaans weekly ‘s journalist Herman Scholtz writes from the Pretoria magistrate’s court that due to the torture-practices carried out by Mano and his collegues on the murder-investigation team, the police minister – i.e. the tax-payers – now has been ordered to pay of R572,259 to traditional healer Madimetja Puhineas Kutumela, 46 – who the court found had been held captive illegally between October 2004 and March 2005 by the Mano-investigation team, which also included Sr Superintendent Nick Pitsoane.

The SAPS team had arrested traditional healer Kutumela, 46, in October 2004. The police-team alleged that Kutumela was ‘involved’ in the kidnapping and murder of the police-woman. The high court ruled this week that Mano had obtained the arrest-order ‘under false pretences’ and that the magistrate who had issued it was deliberately misled, said acting judge Khami Makhofala in his Pretoria High Court ruling.

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Mano-team also ignored important forensic evidence at the Terre’Blanche murder-scene:

Pictures: Murder of Ventersdorp farmer and martyred Afrikaner/Boer leader Eugene Terre’Blanche: the original police-investigation team headed by LtCol Tsietsi Mano this week was found guilty of torturing an innocent ‘suspect’ in a previous murder-case of a murdered police-woman in Nov 2004. Independent forensic investigators of the Terre’Blanche murder-scene also revealed that the Mano-investigation team had completely ignored and missed important forensic evidence . Among the important clues missed by the Mano-team: they ignored that a black female farm-worker who was trusted by Terre’Blanche, was murdered in a cottage nearby -- shortly before Terre’Blanche was murdered; they also ignored the placement of a red book cover with the prominent words “Mountain Man Kill” on the window-sill of the murder-room; they also did not lift missed finger-prints and ignored a broken window-latch and a sneaker-imprint on the ledge of a window in the murder-room; and also ignored other important field-signs near the Terre’Blanche homestead. These were amongst the missed forensic evidence which had led an independent, very experienced forensic-team to conclude that the two arrested suspects did not carry out the Terre’Blanche murder… although they may have known about it…

This week Lt Col Mano and his team were slammed by the High Court judge for their torture-practices: ruling that the traditional healer was held captive illegally between October 2004 and March 2005 in four different places by the Mano-investigation team, “ despite the fact that they had ‘not one shred of evidence against Mr Kutumela…’

“The one and only ‘source’ on which Mano and his colleagues had based their horrifying actions on, has since then himself been found guilty of kidnapping and murdering this unnamed police-woman… Kutumula has always vehemently denied knowing anything about the policewoman’s murder. “

Electric shocks, smothered by wet-bags, shots fired over his head, kidnapped and held under a false name… those were the investigation methods of Mano’s police-team…

While he was held in police-captivity, Kutumela -- according to his own testimony -- was repeatedly shocked with electricity, strangled with the ‘wet-bag’ method and the police-team also threatened to cut off his penis. Kutumela testified that he was stripped naked and forced to stand up while the police officers were firing off shots over his head and shoulders. During one of these torture-sessions he became so terrified of being killed that he befouled himself, he testified. He feared for his life so much that he had at one stage even told his police-torturers that he ‘knew where the body was’, however the police were of course unable to find it.

And Kutumela’s ordeal didn’t end after the badly traumatised, tortured man was released from the Sunnyside Pretoria police station – he was then kidnapped by Mano’s team again -- and held in a police-cell under a false name. ..

During his five-months-long illegal captivity by his police-torturers, Kutumela was also questioned by a police-psychiatrist - who warned the Mano-team that Kutumela was innocent – but the team ignored this psychiatrist’s warnings and continued torturing him and holding him captive, the psychiatrist told the High Court. The court also ruled that Mano and Pitsoane’s testimony, in which they denied the kidnapping and torture of Kutumela, ‘are devoid of all truth.

“These police members have behaved in a most horrific manner,’ said the judge in his summary.

Last month, in the Eugene Terre’Blanche murder trial, LtCol Mano had also testified that the two arrested suspects in the Terre’Blanche case had ‘confessed killing Terre’Blanche’.

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '